Sociobiology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within the study of human societies, sociobiology is closely allied to Darwinian anthropology, human behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology.

Sociobiology investigates social behaviors such as mating patterns, territorial fights, pack hunting, and the hive society of social insects. It argues that just as selection pressure led to animals evolving useful ways of interacting with the natural environment, so also it led to the genetic evolution of advantageous social behavior.

While the term "sociobiology" originated at least as early as the 1940s, the concept did not gain major recognition until the publication of E. O. Wilson's book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975. The new field quickly became the subject of controversy. Critics, led by Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, argued that genes played a role in human behavior, but that traits such as aggressiveness could be explained by social environment rather than by biology. Sociobiologists responded by pointing to the complex relationship between nature and nurture.

Definition

E. O. Wilson defined sociobiology as "the extension of population biology and evolutionary theory to social organization".^[1]

Sociobiology is based on the premise that some behaviors (social and individual) are at least partly inherited and can be affected by natural selection. It begins with the idea that behaviors have evolved over time, similar to the way that physical traits are thought to have evolved. It predicts that animals will act in ways that have proven to be evolutionarily successful over time. This can, among other things, result in the formation of complex social processes conducive to evolutionary fitness.

The discipline seeks to explain behavior as a product of natural selection. Behavior is therefore seen as an effort to preserve one's genes in the population. Inherent in sociobiological reasoning is the idea that certain genes or gene combinations that influence particular behavioral traits can be inherited from generation to generation^[2]

For example, newly dominant male lions often kill cubs in the pride that they did not sire. This behavior is adaptive because killing the cubs eliminates competition for their own offspring and causes the nursing females to come into heat faster, thus allowing more of his genes to enter into the population. Sociobiologists would view this instinctual cub-killing behavior as being inherited through the genes of successfully reproducing male lions, whereas non-killing behavior may have died out as those lions were less successful in reproducing.^[3]

History

E. O. Wilson, a central figure in the history of sociobiology, from the publication in 1975 of his book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis

The ethologist John Paul Scott coined the word sociobiology at a 1948 conference on genetics and social behaviour,^[4] and it became widely used after it was popularized by Edward O. Wilson in his 1975 book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. However, the influence of evolution on behavior has been of interest to biologists and philosophers since soon after the discovery of evolution itself. Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, written in the early 1890s, is a popular example. Antecedents of modern sociobiological thinking can be traced to the 1960s and the work of such biologists as Richard D. Alexander, Robert Trivers and William D. Hamilton. The idea of the inheritance of behaviour arose from J. B. S. Haldane's idea about how "altruistic behaviour" (see Altruism) could be passed from generation to generation.^[5] Wilson's book pioneered and popularized the attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviors such as altruism, aggression, and nurturance, primarily in ants (Wilson's own research specialty) and other Hymenoptera, but also in other animals.^[6] The final chapter of the book is devoted to sociobiological explanations of human behavior, and Wilson later wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book, On Human Nature, that addressed human behavior specifically.^[7]

Edward H. Hagen writes in The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology that sociobiology is, despite the public controversy regarding the applications to humans, "one of the scientific triumphs of the twentieth century." "Sociobiology is now part of the core research and curriculum of virtually all biology departments, and it is a foundation of the work of almost all field biologists" Sociobiological research on nonhuman organisms has increased dramatically and continuously in the world's top scientific journals such as Nature and Science. The more general term behavioral ecology is commonly substituted for the term sociobiology in order to avoid the public controversy.^[8]

Theory

Sociobiologists believe that human behavior, as well as nonhuman animal behavior, can be partly explained as the outcome of natural selection. They contend that in order to fully understand behavior, it must be analyzed in terms of evolutionary considerations.

Natural selection is fundamental to evolutionary theory. Variants of hereditary traits which increase an organism's ability to survive and reproduce will be more greatly represented in subsequent generations, i.e., they will be "selected for". Thus, inherited behavioral mechanisms that allowed an organism a greater chance of surviving and/or reproducing in the past are more likely to survive in present organisms. That inherited adaptive behaviors are present in nonhuman animal species has been multiply demonstrated by biologists, and it has become a foundation of evolutionary biology. However, there is continued resistance by some researchers over the application of evolutionary models to humans, particularly from within the social sciences, where culture has long been assumed to be the predominant driver of behavior.

Nikolaas Tinbergen, whose work influenced sociobiology.

Sociobiology is based upon two fundamental premises:

• Certain behavioral traits are inherited,
• Inherited behavioral traits have been honed by natural selection. Therefore, these traits were probably "adaptive" in the environment in which the species evolved.

Sociobiology uses Nikolaas Tinbergen's four categories of questions and explanations of animal behavior. Two categories are at the species level; two, at the individual level. The species-level categories (often called "ultimate explanations") are

• the function (i.e., adaptation) that a behavior serves and
• the evolutionary process (i.e., phylogeny) that resulted in this functionality.

The individual-level categories (often called "proximate explanations") are

• the development of the individual (i.e., ontogeny) and
• the proximate mechanism (e.g., brain anatomy and hormones).

Sociobiologists are interested in how behavior can be explained logically as a result of selective pressures in the history of a species. Thus, they are often interested in instinctive, or intuitive behavior, and in explaining the similarities, rather than the differences, between cultures. For example, mothers within many species of mammals – including humans – are very protective of their offspring. Sociobiologists reason that this protective behavior likely evolved over time because it helped the offspring of the individuals which had the characteristic to survive. This parental protection would increase in frequency in the population. The social behavior is believed to have evolved in a fashion similar to other types of nonbehavioral adaptations, such as a coat of fur, or the sense of smell.

Individual genetic advantage fails to explain certain social behaviors as a result of gene-centred selection. E.O. Wilson argued that evolution may also act upon groups.^[9] The mechanisms responsible for group selection employ paradigms and population statistics borrowed from evolutionary game theory. Altruism is defined as "a concern for the welfare of others". If altruism is genetically determined, then altruistic individuals must reproduce their own altruistic genetic traits for altruism to survive, but when altruists lavish their resources on non-altruists at the expense of their own kind, the altruists tend to die out and the others tend to increase. An extreme example is a soldier losing his life trying to help a fellow soldier. This example raises the question of how altruistic genes can be passed on if this soldier dies without having any children.^[10]

Within sociobiology, a social behavior is first explained as a sociobiological hypothesis by finding an evolutionarily stable strategy that matches the observed behavior. Stability of a strategy can be difficult to prove, but usually, it will predict gene frequencies. The hypothesis can be supported by establishing a correlation between the gene frequencies predicted by the strategy, and those expressed in a population.

Altruism between social insects and littermates has been explained in such a way. Altruistic behavior, behavior that increases the reproductive fitness of others at the apparent expense of the altruist,^[11] in some animals has been correlated to the degree of genome shared between altruistic individuals. A quantitative description of infanticide by male harem-mating animals when the alpha male is displaced as well as rodent female infanticide and fetal resorption are active areas of study. In general, females with more bearing opportunities may value offspring less, and may also arrange bearing opportunities to maximize the food and protection from mates.

An important concept in sociobiology is that temperament traits exist in an ecological balance. Just as an expansion of a sheep population might encourage the expansion of a wolf population, an expansion of altruistic traits within a gene pool may also encourage increasing numbers of individuals with dependent traits.

Studies of human behavior genetics have generally found behavioral traits such as creativity, extroversion, aggressiveness, and IQ have high heritability. The researchers who carry out those studies are careful to point out that heritability does not constrain the influence that environmental or cultural factors may have on those traits.^[12][13]

Criminality is actively under study, but extremely controversial. There are arguments that in some environments criminal behavior might be adaptive.^[14] The novelist Elias Canetti also has noted applications of sociobiological theory to cultural practices such as slavery and autocracy.^[15]

Support for premise

Genetic mouse mutants illustrate the power that genes exert on behaviour. For example, the transcription factor FEV (aka Pet1), through its role in maintaining the serotonergic system in the brain, is required for normal aggressive and anxiety-like behavior.^[16] Thus, when FEV is genetically deleted from the mouse genome, male mice will instantly attack other males, whereas their wild-type counterparts take significantly longer to initiate violent behaviour. In addition, FEV has been shown to be required for correct maternal behaviour in mice, such that offspring of mothers without the FEV factor do not survive unless cross-fostered to other wild-type female mice.^[17]

A genetic basis for instinctive behavioural traits among non-human species, such as in the above example, is commonly accepted among many biologists; however, attempting to use a genetic basis to explain complex behaviours in human societies has remained extremely controversial.^[18][19]

Reception

Steven Pinker argues that critics have been overly swayed by politics and a fear of biological determinism,^[a] accusing among others Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin of being "radical scientists", whose stance on human nature is influenced by politics rather than science,^[21] while Lewontin, Steven Rose and Leon Kamin who drew a distinction between the politics and history of an idea and its scientific validity^[22] argue that sociobiology fails on scientific grounds. Gould grouped sociobiology with eugenics, criticizing both in his book The Mismeasure of Man.^[23]

Noam Chomsky has expressed views on sociobiology on several occasions. During a 1976 meeting of the Sociobiology Study Group, as reported by Ullica Segerstråle, Chomsky argued for the importance of a sociobiologically informed notion of human nature.^[24] Chomsky argued that human beings are biological organisms and ought to be studied as such, with his criticism of the "blank slate" doctrine in the social sciences (which would inspire a great deal of Steven Pinker's and others' work in evolutionary psychology), in his 1975 Reflections on Language.^[25] Chomsky further hinted at the possible reconciliation of his anarchist political views and sociobiology in a discussion of Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which focused more on altruism than aggression, suggesting that anarchist societies were feasible because of an innate human tendency to cooperate.^[26]

Wilson has claimed that he had never meant to imply what ought to be, only what is the case. However, some critics have argued that the language of sociobiology readily slips from "is" to "ought",^[22] an instance of the naturalistic fallacy. Pinker has argued that opposition to stances considered anti-social, such as ethnic nepotism, is based on moral assumptions, meaning that such opposition is not falsifiable by scientific advances.^[27] The history of this debate, and others related to it, are covered in detail by Cronin (1993), Segerstråle (2000), and Alcock (2001).

It Takes a Giant Cosmos to Create Life and Mind

February 2, 2007 by James N. Gardner
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/it-takes-a-giant-cosmos-to-create-life-and-mind
Published in The Intelligent Universe, New Page
Books, February 2007. Published on KurzweilAI.net Feb. 2, 2007.

A new book, The Intelligent Universe, proposes that the universe might end in intelligent life, one that has acquired the capacity to shape the cosmos as a whole.

There is a time machine clearly visible right outside your front door. It’s easy to see–in fact, it’s impossible to overlook–although its awesome powers are generally ignored by all but a discerning few. The unearthly beauty, the ineffable grandeur, and the ingenuity of construction of this time machine are humbling to every human being who makes an effort to probe into the enigma of its origin and the mystery of its ultimate destiny. The time machine of which I speak is emphatically not of human origin. Indeed, a few venturesome scientists are beginning to entertain a truly incredible possibility: that this device is an artifact bequeathed to us by a supreme intelligence that existed long, long ago and far, far away. All knowledgeable observers agree that the scope of its stupendous powers and the sheer delicacy of its miniscule moving parts seem nothing short of miraculous.

A second amazing but incontrovertible fact confronts those trained in the science of cosmology: We human beings are living our daily lives in the midst of extraterrestrial entities. These entities are everywhere–in the air we breathe, in the food we eat, in the ground beneath our feet, and inside our bodies. These extraterrestrials have made an incredible journey from the venue of their birth to reach planet Earth. Their epic migration, spanning millions of light-years, dwarfs the fictional interstellar voyages of the starship Enterprise. They are the real star trekkers, with more mileage on their odometers than we are capable of imagining. And perhaps most astonishing, we could not possibly survive without their constant presence, and the unfailing exercise of their special powers.

Could the existence of this purported time machine be anything but outrageous science fiction? And how could there be extraterrestrials among us that we have never noticed? Surely not even an inebriated television producer would find these ideas sufficiently credible to weave into an X-Files plot!

Yet I can assure you that both propositions are correct. Indeed, they are indisputable.

The time machine is the universe itself. We see its local features every night in the starry sky above us. The firmament we observe is not a picture of the stars and galaxies as they exist today, but rather a kind of cinematic image of our corner of the cosmos as it existed years ago–in the case of the great galaxy Andromeda, millions of years ago. Because starlight travels through the immensity of interstellar and intergalactic space at a finite pace, and because of the inconceivable vastness of the cosmos, we look backward in time with every glance at the nighttime sky.

With powerful spectacles to aid our vision–massive instruments such as the telescopes that dot the peak of Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope–we can extend our gaze incredibly far back into the past, indeed virtually to the moment of the Big Bang. And with even more sophisticated observational instruments, such as the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational- Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the space-based Big Bang Observer (BBO) that NASA hopes to deploy by 2025, there is hope that we will be able to glimpse the moment of cosmic creation itself–the very genesis of space and time.

What about those extraterrestrials? They are the atoms that combine to form the molecules from which our bodies and virtually everything else in our world and the solar system are made. These extraterrestrials were not, for the most part, born ex nihilo in the fireball of the Big Bang. Instead, they were hammered into existence in the forges of supernova explosions–rare conflagrations that release more energy in a flash than the normal output of the billions of ordinary stars in a typical galaxy.

Of all these extraterrestrial entities, the one with the most unusual birth story is carbon, the essential foundation of life as we know it. The peculiar process of stellar alchemy by which elemental carbon is coaxed into existence is so delicate and improbable that it prompted a giant of British astronomy, Sir Fred Hoyle, to utter the most famous and controversial remark of his storied career:

Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule?" Of course you would…. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.¹

Hoyle’s remark is the inspiration for The Intelligent Universe. The book is the story of an idea, and the idea is quite simple: The best way to think about life, intelligence, and the universe is that they are not separate things, but are different aspects of a single phenomenon. To take liberties with a popular ballad, "We are the world, we are the people, and we are the universe." To state this proposition from the opposite perspective, the universe is coming to life and waking up through the processes of our lives and thoughts, and, very probably, through the lives and thoughts of countless other beings scattered throughout the cosmos.

One startling implication of this idea is that the true story of the origin of the human species is longer than the saga of terrestrial evolution conceived of by Charles Darwin and his intellectual progeny. Thanks to the discoveries of Hoyle and other cosmologists, it is now beyond dispute that the life history of humanity includes the entire history of the cosmos itself. Why? Because an inconceivably ancient and immense universe is needed to create even one species of minuscule living creatures on a single planet orbiting a nondescript star in the outer reaches of an ordinary galaxy.

If the cosmos were not so old and large, multiple generations of stars could not have formed, burned brightly for billions of years, and then blown themselves to pieces in titanic supernovae explosions, thereby synthesizing all the higher elements in the periodic table. Absent those elements (especially carbon and oxygen), there could be no life anywhere amid the countless galaxies that fill the universe.

A second implication of this concept is that if extraterrestrial life and intelligence should exist, it will inevitably be related to mankind. No, I am not talking about a government-suppressed history of alien visitation and cross-breeding, or even the slightly more plausible scenario outlined by Nobel laureate Francis Crick of directed panspermia.

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Directed Panspermia

In Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature² Nobel laureate Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, put forward a hypothesis about the origin of life on Earth that many of his scientific colleagues viewed as outlandish, even scandalous. The essence of Crick’s scenario was that, contrary to Darwin’s speculation that the first living things may have emerged spontaneously in a warm little pond, terrestrial life was deliberately seeded by an advanced alien race billions of years ago. Crick’s ideas built on those of Swedish physicist Svante August Arrhenius, who suggested in the late 19^th century that life did not get started on Earth, but was seeded by microorganisms drifting in from outer space under the gentle pressure of ambient starlight.

A perceived weakness of Arrhenius’s theory–called simply panspermia, which translates literally as seeds everywhere–was that it was thought unlikely that spores or microorganisms could survive the harsh radiation of space for the decades, centuries, or even millennia that would be required for bacteria to slowly waft from even the nearest stars to our solar system.

Crick sought to remedy this weakness in Arrhenius’s theory by proposing that the transplanted extraterrestrial microorganisms had actually traveled to Earth within the protective hull of an alien spaceship! As Crick put it:

Life started here when these organisms were dropped into the primitive ocean and began to multiply.³

Why would this obviously serious-minded and gifted scientist put forward such a seemingly eccentric proposal? Essentially, Crick was attempting to take seriously the logical implications of what he recognized as "the very high degree of [the] organized complexity [of living things] we find at every level, and especially at the molecular level."⁴ In order for even the simplest living creature to metabolize and reproduce, a vast array of incredibly complicated and interdependent molecular machinery must function, at a nanoscale level, with a degree of flawless precision that makes the operations of a Boeing 747 look downright primitive by comparison. As Crick put it in a candid and colorful remark that has become a key talking point for the Intelligent Design crowd:

The origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.⁵

But if life originated on an alien world and was later transported here by a race of intelligent aliens, then the probabilistic resources available to explain a random origin of life’s organized complexity can be expanded exponentially. The major conceptual weakness of Crick’s directed panspermia scenario is that it merely postpones the ultimate question: How did life originally get going, either on a distant planet or in that proverbial warm little pond right here on Earth?

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I am asserting that wherever and however life and intelligence may exist elsewhere in the cosmos, it will have originated and evolved from a universally shared substrate: the chemical elements of the periodic table and the basic forces and parameters of physics. As far as anyone can tell, these elements, forces, and parameters appear invariant throughout the visible universe. They can be thought of as a kind of "deep DNA"–a universal genetic code inscribed far below the level of terrestrial genomes. At this fundamental level, everyone and everything that exists in the universe, whether animate or inanimate, is intimately related. And because all of this living and not-yet-living stuff owes its ultimate origin to a common genesis event (the Big Bang), we are all related in a family way. With apologies to Saint Francis of Assisi, we can confidently state that Earth’s satellite truly is Sister Moon, and that the life-giving star 93 million miles away is genuinely Brother Sun.

A third implication of the concept is that because the vast preponderance of the lifetime of the universe lies in the distant future rather than in the past, the historical achievements of life and mind are meager foreshadowings of the starring role that intelligent life is likely to play in shaping the future of the cosmos. Indeed, this new way of looking at the intimate linkage of life, mind, and the cosmos suggests a novel way of thinking about the ultimate destiny of our universe.

Traditionally, scientists have offered two bleak answers to the profound issue of how the universe will end: fire or ice. The cosmos might end in fire–a cataclysmic Big Crunch in which galaxies, planets, and any life forms that might have endured to the end time are consumed in a raging inferno as the universe contracts in a kind of Big Bang, but in reverse.

Or the universe might end in ice–a ceaseless expansion of the fabric of spacetime in which the thin soup of matter and energy is eternally diluted and cooled. Under this scenario, stars wither and die, constellations of cold matter recede further and further from one another, and the vast project of cosmic evolution simply fades into quiet and endless oblivion.

The Intelligent Universe proposes a third possibility: that the universe might end in intelligent life. Not life as we know it, but life that has acquired the capacity to shape the cosmos as a whole, just as life on Earth has acquired the ability to shape the land, the sea, and the atmosphere. As Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson puts it:

Mind, through the long course of biological evolution, has established itself as a moving force in our little corner of the universe. Here on this small planet, mind has infiltrated matter and has taken control. It appears to me that the tendency of mind to infiltrate and control matter is a law of nature.⁶

My first book, Biocosm,⁷ was one long argument that the cosmos possesses a utility function (some value or outcome that is being maximized) and that the specific utility function of our cosmos is propagation of baby universes exhibiting the same life-friendly physical qualities as their parent-universe. Under this scenario, the mission of sufficiently evolved intelligent life in the universe is essentially to serve as a cosmic reproductive organ, spawning an endless succession of life-friendly offspring that are themselves endowed with the same reproductive capacities as their predecessors. The fact that our universe seems queerly hospitable to carbonbased intelligent life–an astronomically improbable oddity that many leading scientists have identified as the deepest mystery in all of science–emerges in the context of this hypothesis as a predictable outcome (a falsifiable retrodiction, in the jargon of science).

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Falsifiable Retrodictions

Traditionally, scientists insist that new hypotheses generate falsifiable predictions of experimental results in order to qualify as genuine science. However, there are some fields of science–especially archaeology and cosmology, which involve events that occurred in the distant past or in physically inaccessible regions–that cannot generate predictions susceptible to laboratory testing. Although a few purists regard these fields as intrinsically unscientific, most scientists concede that it is appropriate for so-called "historical" sciences, such as geology, evolutionary biology, cosmology, paleontology, and archaeology to rely on retrodiction as an alternate means of testing a scientific hypothesis. A retrodiction essentially compares previously gathered observational evidence (for instance, the fossil record, in the case of evolutionary biology) with the implications of a scientific hypothesis (such as Darwinian natural selection). If the observational evidence agrees with the implications of the hypothesis, the hypothesis is said to retrodict the evidence. A detailed discussion of retrodiction as a tool for testing scientific hypothesis is contained in Appendix A.

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Though The Intelligent Universe reprises some of the key themes of Biocosm, its primary objective is different. Unlike Biocosm, the purpose of this book is not to lay out a scientific hypothesis but rather to tell an extraordinary story–the story of the probable future of the universe. In telling this story, I am going to introduce you to some very unusual and interesting people.

You will meet a senior NASA official whose passion is investigating the probable impact on religion of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. You will encounter a computer scientist who is coaxing software to undergo a special kind of Darwinian evolution, thus becoming more adept and financially valuable over time. And you will meet a technology prophet who, in my view, is the true contemporary heir to Darwin’s intellectual legacy.

You will also meet a fascinating cast of nonhuman players likely to have leading roles on tomorrow’s cosmic stage. They include: (1) super-smart machines capable of out-thinking humans without breaking a sweat; (2) speedy and cost-efficient interstellar probes that will consist of nothing more substantial than elaborate software algorithms capable of "living" in the innards of alien computers they may encounter on far-off planets; and (3) intelligent extraterrestrials, which SETI researchers have not yet discovered but whose probable existence is strongly predicted by my Biocosm hypothesis.

The Intelligent Universe, then, is a kind of projected travelogue–an imagined future history–of the cosmic journey that lies ahead. The foundation for that projection is a vision of the deep linkage between the three ostensibly separate phenomena previously mentioned: the appearance of life, the emergence of intelligence, and the seemingly mindless physical evolution of the cosmos. In discussing these topics, the book will not only provide news dispatches from the frontiers of cosmological science, but also offer musings about the philosophical implications of emerging scientific insights for our self-image as a species.

Some skeptics and traditionalists will doubtless protest that such philosophizing is out of place in a book that seeks to chronicle the latest scientific thinking about the nature of the universe. In rebuttal, I offer the timeless words of Galileo:

Philosophy is written in this grand book–I mean the universe–which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the characters in which it is written.

In the spirit of Galileo, I invite you to gaze into this grand book–I mean our cosmos–and begin to learn the language and the characters in which it is written. As we shall see, the grand book is not only a tale of the past, but also a story about our tomorrows. Above all, it is a book that, carefully deciphered, foretells the incredible journey that intelligent life will make across the vast expanse of the cosmic future and the projected consummation of that voyage–the emergence of the biocosm.

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1. Hoyle, Fred. "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections." Engineering & Science magazine (November, 1981): 8-12, quoted in Owen Gingerich, "Foreword" to Simon Mitton, Conflict in the Cosmos: Fred Hoyle’s Life in Science. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2005: xi.

2. Crick, Francis. Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.

3. Ibid., 15-16.

4. Ibid., 49.

5. Ibid., 88.

6. Dyson, Infinite in All Directions. New York: Harper Perennial Library, 1988; 118.

7. Gardner, James. Biocosm–The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe. Makawao, Maui, Hawaii: Inner Ocean Publishing, 2003.

© 2007 James Gardner

Is the Universe Made of Math? [Excerpt]

In this excerpt from his new book, Our Mathematical Universe, M.I.T. professor Max Tegmark explores the possibility that math does not just describe the universe, but makes the universe

By Max Tegmark on January 10, 2014

Original link:  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-universe-made-of-math-excerpt/

Excerpted with permission from Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, by Max Tegmark. Available from Random House/Knopf. Copyright © 2014.
 

When we look at reality through the equations of

physics, we find that they describe patterns and

regularities. But to me, mathematics is more than a

window on the outside world: I argue that our physical

world not only is described by mathematics, but that it

is mathematics: a mathematical structure, to be precise.

Credit: Max Tegmark

What's the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything? In Douglas Adams' science-fiction spoof “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, the answer was found to be 42; the hardest part turned out to be finding the real question. I find it very appropriate that Douglas Adams joked about 42, because mathematics has played a striking role in our growing understanding of our Universe.

The Higgs Boson was predicted with the same tool as the planet Neptune and the radio wave: with mathematics. Galileo famously stated that our Universe is a “grand book” written in the language of mathematics. So why does our universe seem so mathematical, and what does it mean? In my new book “Our Mathematical Universe”, I argue that it means that our universe isn’t just described by math, but that it is math in the sense that we’re all parts of a giant mathematical object, which in turn is part of a multiverse so huge that it makes the other multiverses debated in recent years seem puny in comparison.

Math, math everywhere!

But where's all this math that we're going on about? Isn't math all about numbers? If you look around right now, you can probably spot a few numbers here and there, for example the page numbers in your latest copy of Scientific American, but these are just symbols invented and printed by people, so they can hardly be said to reflect our Universe being mathematical in any deep way.

Because of our education system, many people equate mathematics with arithmetic. Yet mathematicians study abstract structures far more diverse than numbers, including geometric shapes. Do you see any geometric patterns or shapes around you? Here again, human-made designs like the rectangular shape of this book don't count. But try throwing a pebble and watch the beautiful shape that nature makes for its trajectory! The trajectories of anything you throw have the  same shape, called an upside-down parabola. When we observe how things move around in orbits in space, we discover another recurring shape: the ellipse. Moreover, these two shapes are related: the tip of a very elongated ellipse is shaped almost exactly like a parabola, so in fact, all of these trajectories are simply parts of ellipses.

We humans have gradually discovered many additional recurring shapes and patterns in nature, involving not only motion and gravity, but also areas as disparate as electricity, magnetism, light, heat, chemistry, radioactivity, and subatomic particles. These patterns are summarized by what we call our laws of physics. Just as the shape of an ellipse, all these laws can be described using mathematical equations.

Equations aren't the only hints of mathematics that are built into nature: there are also numbers.
As opposed to human creations like the page numbers in this book, I'm now talking about numbers that are basic properties of our physical reality. For example, how many pencils can you arrange so that they're all perpendicular (at 90 degrees) to each other? 3 – by placing them along the 3 edges emanating from a corner of your room, say. Where did that number 3 come sailing in from? We call this number the dimensionality of our space, but why are there 3 dimensions rather than 4 or 2 or 42? And why are there, as far as we can tell, exactly 6 kinds of quarks in our Universe? There are also numbers encoded in nature that require decimals to write out – for example, the proton about 1836.15267 times heavier than the electron. From just 32 such numbers, we physicists can in principle compute every other physical constant ever measured.

There's something very mathematical about our Universe, and that the more carefully we look, the more math we seem to find. So what do we make of all these hints of mathematics in our physical world? Most of my physics colleagues take them to mean that nature is for some reason described by mathematics, at least approximately, and leave it at that. But I'm convinced that there's more to it, and let's see if it makes more sense to you than to that professor who said it would ruin my career.

The mathematical universe hypothesis

I was quite fascinated by all these mathematical clues back in grad school. One Berkeley evening in 1990, while my friend Bill Poirier and I were sitting around speculating about the ultimate nature of reality, I suddenly had an idea for what it all meant: that our reality isn't just described by mathematics – it is mathematics, in a very specific sense. Not just aspects of it, but all of it, including you.

My starting assumption, the external reality hypothesis, states that there exists an external physical reality completely independent of us humans. When we derive the consequences of a theory, we introduce new concepts and words for them, such as “protons”, “atoms”, “molecules”, “cells” and “stars”, because they're convenient. It's important to remember, however, that it's we humans who create these concepts; in principle, everything could be calculated without this baggage.

But if we assume that reality exists independently of humans, then for a description to be complete, it must also be well-defined according to non-human entities – aliens or supercomputers, say – that lack any understanding of human concepts. That brings us to the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, which states that our external physical reality is a mathematical structure.

For example, suppose a basketball trajectory is that of a beautiful buzzer-beater that wins you the game, and that you later want to describe what it looked like to a friend. Since the ball is made of elementary particles (quarks and electrons), you could in principle describe its motion without making any reference to basketballs:

Particle 1 moves in a parabola.
Particle 2 moves in a parabola.
…
Particle 138,314,159,265,358,979,323,846,264 moves in a parabola.

That would be slightly inconvenient, however, because it would take you longer than the age of our Universe to say it. It would also be redundant, since all the particles are stuck together and move as a single unit. That's why we humans have invented a word “ball” to refer to the entire unit, enabling us to save time by simply describing the motion of the whole unit once and for all.
The ball was designed by humans, but it's quite analogous for composite objects that aren't man-made, such as molecules, rocks and stars: inventing words for them is convenient both for saving time, and for providing concepts in terms of which to understand the world more intuitively. Although useful, such words are all optional baggage.

All of this begs the question: is it actually possible to find such a description of the external reality that involves no baggage? If so, such a description of objects in this external reality and the relations between them would have to be completely abstract, forcing any words or symbols to be mere labels with no preconceived meanings whatsoever. Instead, the only properties of these entities would be those embodied by the relations between them.

To answer this question, we need to take a closer look at mathematics. To a modern logician, a mathematical structure is precisely this: a set of abstract entities with relations between them. This is in stark contrast to the way most of us first perceive mathematics – either as a sadistic form of punishment, or as a bag of tricks for manipulating numbers.

Modern mathematics is the formal study of structures that can be defined in a purely abstract way, without any human baggage. Think of mathematical symbols as mere labels without intrinsic meaning. It doesn't matter whether you write “two plus two equals four”, “2 + 2 = 4” or “dos mas dos igual a cuatro”. The notation used to denote the entities and the relations is irrelevant; the only properties of integers are those embodied by the relations between them. That is, we don't invent mathematical structures – we discover them, and invent only the notation for describing them.

In summary, there are two key points to take away: The External Reality Hypothesis implies that a “theory of everything” (a complete description of our external physical reality) has no baggage, and something that has a complete baggage-free description is precisely a mathematical structure. Taken together, this implies the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, i.e., that the external physical reality described by the theory of everything is a mathematical structure. So the bottom line is that if you believe in an external reality independent of humans, then you must also believe that our physical reality is a mathematical structure. Everything in our world is purely mathematical – including you.


An abstract game of chess is independent of the colors and
shapes of the pieces, and of whether its moves are described
on a physically existing board, by stylized computer-rendered
images or by so-called algebraic chess notation – it's still the
same chess game. Analogously, a mathematical structure is
independent of the symbols used to describe it.
Image: Courtesy of Max Tegmark 

Life without baggage

Above we described how we humans add baggage to our descriptions. Now let's look at the opposite: how mathematical abstraction can remove baggage and strip things down to their bare essence. Consider the sequence of chess moves that have become known as “The Immortal Game”, where white spectacularly sacrifices both rooks, a bishop, and the queen to checkmate with the three remaining minor pieces. When chess aficionados call the Immortal Game beautiful, they're not referring to the attractiveness of the players, the board or the pieces, but to a more abstract entity, which we might call the abstract game, or the sequence of moves.

Chess involves abstract entities (different chess pieces, different squares on the board, etc.) and relations between them. For example, one relation that a piece may have to a square is that the former is standing on the latter. Another relation that a piece may have to a square is that it's allowed to move there. There are many equivalent ways of describing these entities and relations, for example with a physical board, via verbal descriptions in English or Spanish, or using so-called algebraic chess notation. So what is it that's left when you strip away all this baggage? What is it that's described by all these equivalent descriptions? The Immortal Game itself, 100% pure, with no additives. There’s only one unique mathematical structure that’s described by all these equivalent descriptions.

The Mathematical Universe Hypothesis implies that we live in a relational reality, in the sense that the properties of the world around us stem not from properties of its ultimate building blocks, but from the relations between these building blocks. The external physical reality is therefore more than the sum of its parts, in the sense that it can have many interesting properties while its parts have no intrinsic properties at all. This crazy-sounding belief of mine that our physical world not only is described by mathematics, but that it is mathematics, makes us self-aware parts of a giant mathematical object. As I describe in the book, this ultimately demotes familiar notions such as randomness, complexity and even change to the status of illusions; it also implies a new and ultimate collection of parallel universes so vast and exotic that all the above-mentioned bizarreness pales in comparison, forcing us to relinquish many of our most deeply ingrained notions of reality.

It’s easy feel small and powerless when faced with this vast reality. Indeed, we humans have had this experience before, over and over again discovering that what we thought was everything was merely a small part of a larger structure: our planet, our solar system, our Galaxy, our universe and perhaps a hierarchy of parallel universes, nested like Russian dolls. However, I find this empowering as well, because we've repeatedly underestimated not only the size of our cosmos, but also the power of our human mind to understand it. Our cave-dwelling ancestors had just as big brains as we have, and since they didn't spend their evenings watching TV, I'm sure they asked questions like “What's all that stuff up there in the sky?” and “Where does it all come from?”. They'd been told beautiful myths and stories, but little did they realize that they had it in them to actually figure out the answers to these questions for themselves. And that the secret lay not in learning to fly into space to examine the celestial objects, but in letting their human minds fly. When our human imagination first got off the ground and started deciphering the mysteries of space, it was done with mental power rather than rocket power.

I find this quest for knowledge so inspiring that I decided to join it and become a physicist, and I’ve written this book because I want to share these empowering journeys of discovery, especially in this day and age when it’s so easy to feel powerless. If you decide to read it, then it will be not only the quest of me and my fellow physicists, but our quest.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Max Tegmark

Known as "Mad Max" for his unorthodox ideas and passion for adventure, Max Tegmark's scientific interests range from precision cosmology to the ultimate nature of reality, all explored in his new popular book, "Our Mathematical Universe." He is an MIT physics professor with more than 200 technical papers credit, and he has been featured in dozens of science documentaries. His work with the SDSS collaboration on galaxy clustering shared the first prize in Science magazine's "Breakthrough of the Year: 2003."

Nanoethics and Human Enhancement

March 31, 2006 by Patrick Lin, Fritz Allhoff
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/nanoethics-and-human-enhancement

Originally published in Nanotechnology Perceptions: A Review of Ultraprecision Engineering and Nanotechnology, Volume 2, No. 1, March 27 2006. Reprinted with permission on KurzweilAI.net March 31, 2006.

Radical nanotech-based human enhancements such as bionic implants and “respirocyte” artificial red blood cells will become technologically viable in the near future, raising profound ethical issues and forcing us to rethink what it means to be human. Recent pro-enhancement arguments will need to be critically examined and strengthened if they are to be convincing.

Human enhancement—our ability to use technology to enhance our bodies and minds, as opposed to its application for therapeutic purposes—is a critical issue facing nanotechnology. It will be involved in some of the near-term applications of nanotechnology, with such research labs as MIT’s Institute for Soldier Technologies working on exoskeletons and other innovations that increase human strength and capabilities. It is also a core issue related to far-term predictions in nanotechnology, such as longevity, nanomedicine, artificial intelligence and other issues.

The implications of nanotechnology as related to human enhancement are perhaps some of the most personal and therefore passionate issues in the emerging field of nanoethics, forcing us to rethink what it means to be human or, essentially, our own identity. For some, nanotechnology holds the promise of making us superhuman; for others, it offers a darker path toward becoming Frankenstein’s monster.

Without advocating any particular side of the debate, this essay will look at a growing chorus of calls for human enhancement, especially in the context of emerging technologies, to be embraced and unrestricted. We will critically examine recent “pro-enhancement” arguments—articulated in More Than Human (2005) by Ramez Naam¹, as one of the most visible works on the subject today—and conclude that they ultimately need to be repaired, if they are to be convincing.

Before we proceed, we should lay out a few actual and possible scenarios in order to be clear on what we mean by “human enhancement.” In addition to steroid use to become stronger and plastic surgery to become more attractive, people today also use drugs to boost creativity, attentiveness, perception, and more. In the future, nanotechnology might give us implants that enable us to see in the dark, or in currently non-visible spectrums such as infrared. As artificial intelligence advances, nano-computers might be imbedded into our bodies in order to help process more information faster, even to the point where man and machine become indistinguishable.

These scenarios admittedly sound like science fiction, but with nanotechnology, we move much closer to turning them into reality. Atomically-precise manufacturing techniques continue to become more refined and will be able to build cellular-level sensors and other tools that can be integrated into our bodies. Indeed, designs have already been worked out for such innovations as a “respirocyte”—an artificial red blood cell that holds a reservoir of oxygen.² A respirocyte would come in handy for, say, a heart attack victim to continue breathing for an extra hour until medical treatment is available, despite a lack of blood circulation to the lungs or anywhere else. But in an otherwise-healthy athlete, a respirocyte could boost performance by delivering extra oxygen to the muscles, as if the person were breathing from a pure oxygen tank.

What we do not mean by “human enhancement” is the mere use of tools, such as a hammer or Microsoft Word, to aid human activities, or “natural” improvements of diet and exercise—though, as we shall discuss later, agreeing on a definition may not be a simple matter. Further, we must distinguish the concept from therapeutic applications, such as using steroids to treat any number of medical conditions, which we take to be unobjectionable for the purposes of this essay.

Also, our discussion here can benefit from quickly noting some of the intuitions on both sides of the debate. The anti-enhancement camp may point to steroids in sports as an argument for regulating technology: that it corrupts the notion of fair competition. Also, some say, by condoning enhancement we are setting the wrong example for our children, encouraging risky behavior in bodies that are still developing. “Human dignity” is also a recurring theme for this side, believing that such enhancements pervert the notion of what it means to be human (with all our flaws).

On the pro-enhancement side, it seems obvious that the desire for self-improvement is morally laudable. Attempts to improve ourselves through, for example, education, hard work, and so on are uncontroversially good; why should technology-based enhancements be viewed any differently? In addition to virtue-based defenses of technological enhancement, we might also appeal to individual autonomy to defend the practice: so long as rational, autonomous individuals freely choose to participate in these projects, intervention against them is morally problematic.

In More Than Human, it is interesting to see that the debate is framed as a conservative (anti-enhancement) versus liberal (pro-enhancement) issue³. This proposed dichotomy is undoubtedly influenced by the creation and work of the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics. Led by Leon Kass, M.D., PhD, the council released a report, Beyond Therapy, in 2004 that endorsed an anti-enhancement position; this report has become the prime target for both liberals and pro-enhancement groups. However, it would be a mistake to think that the issue necessarily follows political lines, since there may be good reason for a liberal to be anti-enhancement, as well as for a conservative to support it.

In his introductory chapter, Naam outlines the overarching theme that is supported by his research and analysis in subsequent chapters. He offers four distinct arguments in defending the pro-enhancement position: first, there are pragmatic reasons for embracing enhancement; second, regulation will not work anyway; third, respect for our autonomy licenses the practices; and, fourth, that the desire to enhance is inherently human and therefore must be respected.

1. In his first argument, Naam points out that “scientists cannot draw a clear line between healing and enhancing.”⁴ The implied conclusion here is that, if no principled distinction can be made between two concepts, it is irrational to afford them different moral status. So, since there are no restrictions on therapy, in that we have a right to medical aid, there also should be no restrictions on human enhancement, i.e. using the same medical devices or procedures to improve our already-healthy bodies. In other words, there is no significant or moral difference between therapy and enhancement.

There are numerous problems with such a claim; we will herein elucidate two. The first problem can be illustrated by the famous philosophical puzzle called “The Paradox of the Heap”: given a heap of sand with N number of grains of sand, if we remove one grain of sand, we are still left with a heap of sand (that now only has N-1 grains of sand). If we remove one more grain, we are again left with a heap of sand (that now has N-2 grains). If we extend this line of reasoning and continue to remove grains of sand, we see that there is no clear point where we can definitely say that on side A, here is a heap of sand, but on the side B, this is less than a heap. In other words, there is no clear distinction between a heap of sand and a less-than-a-heap or even no sand at all. However, the wrong conclusion to draw here is that there is no difference between them; so likewise, it would be fallacious to conclude that there is no difference between therapy and enhancement. It may still be the case that there is no moral difference between the two, but we cannot arrive at it through the argument that there is no clear defining line.

But, second, there likely are principled distinctions that can be made between enhancement and therapy.⁵ For example, Norm Daniels has argued for the use of “quasi-statistical concepts of ‘normality’ to argue that any intervention designed to restore or preserve a species-typical level of functioning for an individual should count as [therapy]“⁶ and the rest as enhancement. Alternatively, Eric Juengst has proposed that therapies aim at pathologies which compromise health, whereas enhancements aim at improvements that are not health-related.⁷

Another pragmatic reason Naam gives is that “we cannot stop research into enhancing ourselves without also halting research focused on healing the sick and injured.”⁸ However, this claim seems to miss the point: anti-enhancement advocates can simply counter that it is not the research they want stopped or regulated, but rather the use of that research or its products for enhancement. For instance, we may want to ban steroids from sports, but no one is calling for an outright ban on all steroids research, much of which serves healing purposes.

Naam also puts the burden of proof—that regulation of enhancement is needed—on the anti-enhancement side, instead of offering an argument that enhancement need not be regulated.⁹ But it is unclear here why we should abandon the principle of erring on the side of caution, particularly where human health may be at stake as well as other societal impacts. Further, both sides have already identified a list of benefits or harms that might arise from unregulated human enhancement. The problem now is to evaluate these benefits and harms against each other (e.g., increased longevity versus overpopulation), also factoring in any relevant human rights. If neither side is able to convincingly show that benefits outweigh harms, or vice versa, then burden of proof seems to be a non-issue.

2. In his second argument, Naam compares a ban on enhancement to the U.S. “War on Drugs," citing its ineffectiveness as well as externalities such as artificially high prices and increased safety risks (e.g., users having to share needles because they cannot obtain new or clean ones) for those who will use drugs anyway.¹⁰ If people are as avidly driven to enhancement as they are to drugs, then yes, this may be the case. But is that a good enough reason to not even try to contain a problem, whether it is drugs, prostitution, gambling, or whatever? While such laws may be paternalistic, they reflect the majority consensus that a significant number of people cannot act responsibly in these activities and need to be protected from themselves and from inevitably harming others. Even many liberals are not categorically opposed to these regulations and may see the rationale of “greater good” behind similar regulation of enhancement.

Further, that we are unable to totally stop an activity does not seem to be reason at all against prohibiting that activity. If it were, then we would not have any laws against murder, speeding, “illegal” immigration—in fact, it is unclear what laws we would have left. Laws exist precisely because some people inescapably have tendencies to the opposite of what is desired by society or government. Again, this is not to say that human enhancement should be prohibited, only that a stronger and more compelling argument is needed.

3. In his third argument, Naam ties human enhancement to the debate over human freedom: “Should individuals and families have the right to alter their own minds and bodies, or should that power be held by the state? In a democratic society, it’s every man and woman who should determine such things, not the state…Governments are instituted to secure individual rights, not to restrict them.”¹¹

Besides politicizing a debate that need not be political, Naam’s arguments are increasingly not anti-conservative but pro-libertarian. You would need to have already adopted the libertarian philosophy to accept this line of reasoning (as well as the preceding argument), since again, even liberals can see that the state has a broader role in creating a functioning, orderly society. This necessarily entails reasonable limits to whatever natural rights we have and also implies new responsibilities—for example, we shouldn’t exercise our right to free speech by slandering or by yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

A democratic society is not compelled to endorse laissez-faire political philosophy and the minimal state, as some political philosophers have suggested.¹² Nor would reasonable people necessarily want unrestricted freedom, e.g. no restrictions or background checks for gun ownership. Even in a democracy as liberal as ours in the United States, we understand the value of regulations as a way to enhance our freedom. For instance, our economic system is not truly a “free market”—though we advocate freedom in general, regulations exist not only to protect our rights, but also to create an orderly process that greases the economic wheel, accelerating both innovations and transactions. As a simpler example, by disciplining a dog to obey commands and not run around unchecked, we actually increase that pet’s freedom by now being able to take him or her on more walks and perhaps without a leash (not to compare people with dogs or laws with behavioral conditioning).

4. Finally, Naam argues that people have been enhancing themselves from the start: “Far from being unnatural, the drive to alter and improve on ourselves is a fundamental part of who we humans are. As a species we’ve always looked for ways to be faster, stronger, and smarter and to live longer.”¹³ This seems to be an accurate observation, but it is an argumentative leap from this fact about the world, which is descriptive, to a moral conclusion about the world, which is normative. Or, as the philosophical saying goes, we cannot derive “ought” from “is," meaning just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it should be that way or must continue to be that way. For instance, would the fact that we have engaged in wars—or slavery, or intolerance—across the entire history of civilization imply that we should continue with those activities?

More seriously, this argument seems to turn on an overly-broad definition of “human enhancement," such that it includes the use of tools, diet, exercise, and so on—or what we would intuitively call “natural” improvement. An objection to Naam’s first argument also applies here: just because we cannot clearly delineate between enhancement and therapy or tool-use does not mean there is no line between them. We understand that steroid use by baseball players is a case of human enhancement; we also understand that using a rock to crack open a clam is not. Still, the fact that we have not arrived at a clear definition of “human enhancement” should not prevent us from using intuitive distinctions to meaningfully discuss the issue.

The point here is not that human enhancement should be restricted. It is simply that current arguments need to be more compelling and philosophically rigorous, if the pro-enhancement side is to be successful. There is admittedly a strong intuition driving the pro-enhancement movement, but it needs to be articulated more fully, resulting in an argument something like the following:

Who we are now seems to be a product of nature and nurture, most of which is beyond our control. So, if this genetic-environmental lottery is truly random, then why should we be constrained to its results? After all, we’ve never agreed to such a process in the first place. Why not enhance ourselves to be on par with the capabilities of others? And if that is morally permissible, then why not go a little—or a lot—beyond the capabilities of others?

As suggested in the above analysis, one of the first steps in discussing human enhancement is to arrive at a better definition of what it is, perhaps by adopting that used by Daniels or Juengst, though these are still tough issues. For instance, does it matter whether enhancements are worn outside our bodies as opposed to being implanted? Why should carrying around a Pocket PC or binoculars be acceptable, but having a computer or a “bionic eye” implanted in our bodies be subject to possible regulation—what is the moral difference between the two?

Further, there are societal and ethical implications that also need to be considered, apart from those already mentioned. Before we too quickly dismiss the idea of “human dignity” as romanticized and outdated, we need to give it full consideration and ask whether that concept would suffer if human enhancement were unrestricted. Is there an obligation to enhance our children, or will parents feel pressure to do so? Might there be an “Enhancement Divide,” similar to the Digital Divide, that significantly disadvantages those without? If some people can interact with the world in ways that are unimaginable to others (such as echolocation or seeing in infrared), will that create a further “Communication Divide” such that people no longer share the same basic experiences in order to communicate with each other?

In this essay, we have tried to detail some of the challenges that nanotechnology and nanoethics will confront as applications to human enhancement become technologically viable. This will not be in the distant future, but rather sooner than many of us might have expected. It seems to the authors that a balanced and reasonable perspective is more appropriate than either polarizing extreme, if we are to responsibly and productively advance nanotechnology and its applications, particularly in light of the challenges to the pro-enhancement position that we have described.

---

1. Ramez Naam, More Than Human (Broadway Books, New York: 2005). See also
www.morethanhuman.org.
2. Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology: A Mechanical Artificial Red Cell,” Artificial Cells, Blood Substitutes, and Immobil. Biotech. 26(1998): 411-430
3. Naam (2005), pp.3-5.
4. Naam (2005), p.5.
5. For more discussion of these ideas, see Fritz Allhoff, “Germ-Line Genetic Enhancement and Rawlsian Primary Goods,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journals 15.1 (2005): 43-60.
6. Norm Daniels, “Growth Hormone Therapy for Short Stature: Can We Support the Treatment/Enhancement Distinction?," Growth: Genetics & Hormones 8.S1 (1992): 46-8.
7. Eric Juengst, “Can Enhancement Be Distinguished from Prevention in Genetic Medicine?," Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 22 (1997): 125-42.
8. Naam (2005), p.5.
9. Naam (2005), p.5.
10. Naam (2005), p.6.
11. Naam (2005), p.6-9.
12. See, for example, Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).
13. Naam (2005), p.9.

© 2006 Patrick Lin and Fritz Allhoff.

A Dialogue on Reincarnation

January 6, 2004 by Ray Kurzweil
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-dialogue-on-reincarnation
Published on KurzweilAI.net January 6, 2004.
 
If you were offered physical immortality as a “Wallerstein brain” (a human brain maintained in a jar interfacing to a virtual reality through its sensory and motor neurons), would you accept it? The question came up in an email dialogue about reincarnation between Ray Kurzweil and Steve Rabinowitz, a practicing attorney in New York City (which he says may explain his need to believe in reincarnation).

Ray: You mentioned that you believe in reincarnation.  I know that this is the belief of many traditions.  But as you know, following a "tradition" is not always the most reliable way of achieving the truth of the matter.  There are a lot of traditions that have arbitrary and nonsensical beliefs.
So I was wondering: do you really believe in reincarnation, or are you just accepting without critical reflection this belief from a tradition that has provided you with a lot of other benefits?  Or to put it another way, what evidence do you have for reincarnation?

One concern I have with this belief is that it can be viewed as yet another rationalization for death.  As I mentioned, our religious traditions have gone to extensive lengths to rationalize death.  It is obvious to me that death is a tragedy, but up until very recently, it has appeared that there was nothing we could do about it, other than to rationalize that it must, after all, be a good thing.  This view would apply to reincarnation. 

One might argue that what’s the harm in rationalizing death?  The harm is that in rationalizing something that is tragic, we fail to take the urgent action needed to avoid the tragedy, something which is now becoming feasible.  As Dylan Thomas wrote: "Do not go gentle into that good night,. . .Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Steve: My reincarnation conjecture was in response to Amy’s [Kurzweil, Ray's daughter] statement [below], which blew me away. Ethan [Kurzweil, Ray's son] had already expressed skepticism to me about the desirability of immortality at a previous luncheon, but Amy’s reason for rejecting it took me totally by surprise: "So boring."

I suppose I’m rather Cartesian in my outlook towards life. As far as evidence of reincarnation, I’ve read books that purported to offer some, but really I didn’t much care about such "evidence" one way or another. There are certain basic assumptions which I seem to be forced into—and from there, logic dictates the rest.

When I was little, my parents like to tease me by saying that if they hadn’t married, I would never have existed. I never could buy that. The idea that my inner Self began at a particular time and will end at a particular time is unimaginable to me. Now I could just say that’s just a subjective delusion or defense, but in the end, I know I wouldn’t be true to myself if I went down that path, because the belief in my own timelessness is just too strong. I could make believe that I don’t really believe it, I could decide that it is a foolish belief, but I know in my heart that no matter what, I do believe it, and so to me it makes more sense to just accept it as an assumption and see where I go from there.

I don’t know if Amy’s comment about boredom is just a statement about her own current state of mind or an insight into the human condition. If one does believe in reincarnation, it is a small step to believe in higher beings for whom life is much more interesting than that of humans. In that vision of reality, evolved beings such as Amy would seek a birth on this planet to confront particular goals—and facing death would of course be one of the main ones. But her stay here would be a relatively short one—and then back to having fun.

In many traditions, various beings attain immortality. For those who do it by purifying their nervous systems, life is very, very good, and these fortunate individuals attain great powers, visit celestial beings and do all sorts of things as they wish. These people are admired by all. However, occasionally, not-so-evolved beings get the immortality trick done, and their feelings are much more mixed. They feel jealousy as their friends ascend to heaven, and need comforting.

So depending on your world view, and your own condition, physical immortality may not necessarily be a blessing.

However, all in all, if you offered it to me, I would take it. Fear of death is built in too, I guess, and maybe I’m proud enough to think I could use the time to make it all worthwhile.

But it is a question worthy of thought. It is obvious to me that we all wish for things, which if achieved, would not be to our benefit.

Ray: Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I do think Amy’s statement is insightful. It is important to understand my perspective—my "vision of the future"—in its totality. Most futurists make two mistakes. They think linearly whereas the trends are exponential. And they consider one trend on today’s world as if nothing else were going to change. Amy is essentially correct, that if we simply extended human longevity to hundreds of years, our psychology could not handle it. We would indeed be gripped with a deep ennui. But extending human lifespan is not the only radical change in store. We are also going to merge with our technology and expand our cognitive and emotional capabilities, as well as the depth and richness of our intellectual, relational, artistic, sexual, and emotional experiences many fold, ultimately by factors of trillions as we go through this century. So boredom will not be an issue.

With regard to reincarnation, I’d say several things. Your starting intuition, that "my inner self" is essentially timeless, is reasonable. We do need to go beyond science when we consider the nature of consciousness, which is to say the nature of one’s self. Science is about objective observation and deductions thereof, whereas consciousness—the self—is about subjective experience. There is a gap there. An intuition of a "timeless self" is in my view reasonable.

But then you claim that from there, logic brings you to reincarnation. But there is no logical bridge from "timeless self" to "reincarnation." You jump from an essential "timeless" mystery about the self to an ornate system of reincarnation, with greater beings, celestial powers, babies coming back to planets, etc. It’s no more logical than stories of heaven, or other attempts to explain in language essential ineffable truths.

A problem I have with these views is that it gives a concrete reality to levels of reality that have no basis, but nonetheless effect people’s activities in this life (often negatively, but that is not my main point).

Let’s start with what we do know. There is a reality that we experience every day. We can call it physical reality. Now some philosophers say that this physical reality is really a dream, and so on. But regardless of its true nature, we do directly experience it, and so we can say that it exists.

Another reasonable intuition is that "reality matters." People suffer. Suffering can be alleviated. Our actions have consequences. It makes a difference how we act in this world.

Another insight that is quite consistent with how we act and feel is that death is a tragedy. We don’t celebrate it. We are saddened by it. We feel it as a great loss. There is a loss of experience and knowledge, not only in the departed, but in those of us left behind. We don’t reward murderers. We despise and punish them.

These are insights we can have some confidence in, in contrast to claimed logical deductions about ornate systems of reincarnation, heaven, etc. that we cannot experience.

While I respect your views and the tradition they stem from, I don’t really believe that you really firmly believe that reincarnation or any other such "system" is the only possible explanation. You may find the explanation comforting, but if you really consider your true beliefs, you would have to admit that you don’t really know this to be true. As a mental experiment, consider the situation in which somehow, a different truth were revealed to you. Put aside how it would be possible for any such truth to be "revealed," but just imagine that somehow this happened. Would you be totally shocked? Or would you shrug your shoulders and consider that now you have a deeper insight?

So I come back to what we really know and can have confidence in. There is a reality to joy and to suffering, and to the suffering, and loss of knowledge and experience that illness and death brings. And there is joy and gratification in knowledge, discovery, friendship, and experiences that enable us to grow. And we can move in this direction in the world that we know exists, rather than in metaphorical realms.

I would not describe physical immortality as inherently a blessing, nor a curse. Rather, we have the opportunity and responsibility to embrace the growth of knowledge and experience, and to alleviate suffering and destruction. The problem I have with many of the common traditions regarding death is not only that they are "deathist rationalizations," but they encourage passivity. To the idea that "death is natural," I would point out that it is natural for our species to push beyond its boundaries. We did not stay on the ground. We did not stay on the planet. We did not stay with our biological life expectancy (which was 37 years in 1800). And we are not staying with the limitations of our bodies and brains.

Steve: I don’t think we are in disagreement. But once you open the door to timelessness of consciousness, what happens after death becomes a legitimate consideration in deciding whether you want physical immortality in your present body, as it may be modified. If you offered me physical immortality as a “Wallerstein brain” in a jar (a human brain maintained in a jar interfacing to a virtual reality through its sensory and motor neurons), I, and I think most people, would reject it no matter how good the virtual stimulation might be. This rejection is based on an inner calculation (which I believe the brain constantly makes in making all kinds of decisions) weighing the risks that such stimulation not being "real" means it may prove unsatisfactory in the long run and weighing of the odds of some sort of preferable reality coming to pass through natural means. It is true that death is painful and hence we seek to avoid it, but after all, birth is painful too, and I don’t think we would advise anyone against that.

Finally, the future you paint below is only one future: you have pointed out many times the risks of technology leading to unfortunate outcomes if certain science is misused.

I’d like physical immortality for myself, I think; I’m just suggesting some caution may be advised.

Ray: Steve, a relevant quote:

A mind that stays at the same capacity cannot live forever; after a few thousand years it would look more like a repeating tape loop than a person. To live indefinitely long, the mind itself must grow. . . . and when it becomes great enough, and looks back. . . .what fellow feeling can it have with the soul that it was originally? The later being would be everything the original was, but vastly more.

      - Vernor Vinge

Steve: What fellow feeling indeed? I think that is the great mystery, the thing that binds the infinite distinct points on the time line into the sense of "I."

Ray: When I think of myself back in junior high school or high school, I feel a bit of kinship to that person, but at the same time it also seems like someone else.

Steve: Strange, isn’t it?

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